


Will be all right

by WahlBuilder



Category: Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)
Genre: Age Difference, All Wilsons Are Trans, Developing Relationship, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Wilson Is White, Trans Male Character, so many headcanons, twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 15:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17286488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: A story of how Joey's relationship with Ish develops.





	Will be all right

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [concerning the courtship of slade wilson (it is, indeed, very concerning)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17135162) by [apprenticenanoswarm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprenticenanoswarm/pseuds/apprenticenanoswarm). 



> This is actually a mix of Arrow (TV) and comics. I took everything I liked from everywhere I wanted, and set everything else on fire. Enjoy =3  
> WARNING: there is a non-graphic scene of a trans man suffering from painful periods. Putting this here just in case.

Ish knows ASL. Joey teaches him Auslan and NZSL. Ish concentrates so hard, a frown on his face, his lips pressed thin just like when he’s pondering on the blueprints of his latest device, trying to get which tiny thing is preventing it from working.

Joey teaches him the signs their family has developed, too. He reasons to himself that it is because Uncle Ish might need them while working with Dad.

Joey likes Ish’s hands.

+++

Ish. Ish. Ish. Everyone calls him that—or ‘Dr Isherwood’.

Everyone calls Joey ‘Joey’ (except for Dad, who calls him ‘Tauhou’)—but Ish calls him ‘Joseph’.

So, Joey calls him ‘David’, in a text, asking him whether he wants those chocolate éclairs from the patisserie two blocks from his lab, I remember you liking them very much and I just happen to be right here, David, do you want one or, wait, there’s a box with three, it’s a steal, they are so fresh and—

He makes a few mistakes, typing so fast while fishing for his card and making the order at the same time. His heart hammering.

His phone buzzes and he nearly drops it and the box with pastries then looks at the text.

‘That would be very good, Joseph.’

+++

In a week, it transforms into ‘Davie’.

+++

Davie asks him about his tattoos, and Joey tells him about the general history of tā moko, and the meaning of it (as his Dad told him in his time), and he takes off his T-shirt to let Davie have a closer look—but gets tangled in the fabric, realising what else Davie would see, heat rushing to his cheeks and down his neck...

‘Covering your binder with similar designs, that is wonderful, Joseph!’

Davie helps him out of the T-shirt, and they continue their studies.

+++

Davie tells him the tale about Joseph—Yosef—and his dreams and brothers.

Joey goes back home and does not sleep despite that he has college in the morning, and then Grant stumbles through the door, returning from a mission like he promised he would, and Joey goes to him and brings their foreheads together and hugs him tight and maybe cries a little.

He falls asleep before the TV, tucked to Grant’s side on the couch. Grant can never go to sleep a few days after returning home.

+++

It happens—once a few years, or sometimes once a few months. There is no predicting it. It has something to do with Dad’s genetics clashing with whatever was done to him clashing with the implants that had been forced into him clashing with… Joey isn’t sure, and he thinks even Dad is not sure himself.

The thing is, sometimes his Dad doubles over with that debilitating, gripping pain in his abdomen that Joey knows well; his appetite drops entirely, his mood destabilises completely.

It always catches Joey off-guard.

And now he’s all alone and his Dad is curled up on the couch way too short even for his slumped form, and Joey… He panics. A little. And calls the number that’s been on top of his contact list for a long while now.

He leaves the phone on the coffee table and wraps an arm over his Dad’s shoulder and presses his face to his Dad’s shoulder blade and tries not to whine or to sob loudly.

Dad squeezes his hand and rasps, ‘ _Tau_ — ah _fuck_!— I’ll be all right, little one. You know I will.’

He wishes he could do more, he wishes…

There is a ring to the door, and his Dad half-turns, ‘Wha—’ But Joey squeezes his hand and scrambles to his feet and gets to the door, dropping the keys two times before managing to open it.

Davie is dripping rainwater, his hair plastered to his head, a familiar frown. And he steps into the apartment and takes Joey’s face in his hands. ‘Are you all right?’

Joey blinks, why is he…? Oh. Joey nods several times, and takes Davie’s hands and drags him into the living room.

His Dad peers over his shoulder. ‘Ish? What are you doing here?’

‘Helping you, apparently, you arse.’ Davie goes to his Dad—but not before he squeezes Joey’s hand. ‘You don’t seem to be shot. Someone turned off your healing again? That’s getting repetitive.’

‘Fuck off,’ his Dad grunts, and then curls up again, his hands pressed to his stomach.

‘No, I’m not fucking off.’ Davie sighs, then looks up, and smiles. ‘Joseph, do you have a hot water bottle or heating pads? And we must feed him something. Do you think you can make some broth or at least tea?’

He nods, and wipes his cheeks, and smiles despite that his Dad is cursing under his breath, mostly at Davie.

It’s going to be all right.

+++

Joey realises he has to make the first move.

It is quite frustrating—not the fact he seems to have to make the first move, but the fact that Davie is definitely aware of their mutual attraction… But keeps away. Is it the age difference? But Joey doesn’t care, and he’s not a child. Is it that Davie doesn’t think himself attractive? Is it because he’s known Joey’s Dad for years?

Joey gets a migraine for his efforts at untangling this knot, and, after an evening and full night of the left side of his head feeling like molten lead, both hot and cold at the same time, and a few hours in the early morning exchanging texts with Rosie (‘theres nothing wrong with u making the1st move. what kind of stereo.types you have? i raised u beter.’), he gets another box of Davie’s favourite éclairs (chocolate, with chocolate filling) after classes and goes to Davie’s lab, intending to have a Serious Talk with him and then maybe to kiss him.

Davie’s face lights up when he opens the door—and Joey puts the box on the side table (carefully), and puts his hands on Davie’s shoulders (firmly), and stands on his tiptoes and kisses him.

(Davie smells like pine aftershave, and hey, should take off his glasses next time.)

Joey doesn’t close his eyes, and Davie doesn’t close his eyes either, and through the kiss they watch each other, and somehow that feels more intimate than the kiss itself.

Standing on his tiptoes for a long time is not comfortable, so Joey breaks the kiss a couple eternities later, and notices the colour on Davie’s cheeks, and then gives him a peck on the chin just because he can.

It makes Davie smile, makes crow’s feet appear by his eyes. ‘I wondered whether you’d—’

Of course. Of course he thought himself into the corner, that’s what Davie does sometimes. So Joey doesn’t let him think himself into confusion again, and puts a hand on the nape of Davie’s neck and brings him down and touches their foreheads together.

They will be all right.


End file.
